Boston, Massachusetts, June 19, 2018 – Berman Tabacco and Bailey & Glasser LLP, two of the leading law firms representing investors and consumers nationwide, have filed a class action lawsuit against MetLife, Inc. (NYSE:MET) and certain of its affiliates (collectively, “MetLife” or the “Company”) on behalf of retirees who were allegedly unfairly denied timely payment of their pension benefits over the last 25 years.
The suit, filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleges that MetLife has publicly acknowledged that it failed to keep track of pension annuity beneficiaries (“beneficiaries”), failed to contact them, and failed to pay them their benefits when due for as long as 25 years. Instead of paying the pension annuity benefits to beneficiaries or turning them over to states under unclaimed property law, MetLife allegedly kept the money and has acknowledged that it owes as many as 30,000 beneficiaries more than $500 million in annuity benefits.
The suit also alleges that after some feeble attempts to contact beneficiaries, MetLife closed its files and kept the money for itself. Now, years later, the suit alleges that MetLife has promised to try harder to reunite the retirees with their money.
The lawsuit claims that MetLife’s methods for notifying beneficiaries of their eligibility for pension benefits appear designed to ensure that many that many retirees would never be paid so that MetLife could convert the payments to its own use. The suit alleges that MetLife acknowledges that it made only two attempts to contact these pension beneficiaries – one at age 65 and the only other at age 70.5 – and made no effort to locate individuals if the mailings were returned as undeliverable. If the beneficiary did not respond to this half-hearted outreach, plaintiffs alleged, that it was MetLife’s practice to convert the reserve for these benefits and treat the beneficiaries’ retirement benefits as income to itself. It is alleged that MetLife’s notices did not even identify the former employer of the retirees.
MetLife has revealed that it is responding to questions from its lead state regulator in New York and other state regulators. The Company has also said that the Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement staff “has made an inquiry” about the matter.
Berman Tabacco and Bailey & Glasser bring this class action to obtain damages and other relief for these forgotten retirees, and to remedy the harm caused by MetLife’s alleged conversion of these annuity pension benefits to its own use. If you have any information relevant to this lawsuit, or if you have questions about this lawsuit please contact: Mark Delaney of Berman Tabacco at (617) 542-8300 or mdelaney@bermantabacco.com; or Gregory Porter of Bailey & Glasser at 202-463-2101 or gporter@baileyglasser.com or visit https://www.metlifemissingpensions.com/.